Seven Days
by shadowed warrior
Summary: Hermoine is turned into a vampire and goes to the only person she can think of for help. But is being a vampire really a fate worse than death? 1-shot, Drabble, just a random thought in the middle of the night.


"Seven days." She looked surprised.

"That long? I thought someone would have suspected something before now. Makes me rather relieved that I lived through the transformation. If I had died it would have been rather appalling to be found a week later. I would have begun to smell."

"Please, Ms. Granger, there is no call to be crude." She chuckled.

"Really Severus, I haven't been a student for quite a few years now, is there a reason why you still feel the need to address me as if I were a recalcitrant student?" He shot her an exasperated look and shook his head.

"Why is it exactly that you came to me, Hermoine? Or did you think that I would make a pleasant first victim? That would be ironic, wouldn't it? And how did you manage to breach the wards and get into Hogwarts to begin with?"

"How I got in was fairly simple, it involved a very small tunnel and a lack of foresight to ward underground. I came to you because," this time she hesitated. "I heard a rumor that a potion might exist that can reverse this if its made before I feed for the first time. If anyone would know about such a potion, it's you." He looked up in surprise.

"You haven't fed? In a week? Merlin, you should be nearly mad by now." She looked away for the first time and he noticed the tiny shudders that wracked her almost constantly. "You nearly are, aren't you? I knew you were a brilliant witch, but this level of self control is, impressive. It cannot, however, last. If you do not feed within a very short time, things will not go well for you."

"I know this." For the first time he approached her and she smelled the blood in his veins, could hear the steady pumping of his heart. She mewled softly, battling not to reach out.

"Severus, please, you must not come any closer, I can't…" he shushed her gently, pulling her head into his shoulder.

"You can do nothing to me that was not done many years ago, witch. I know the rumors of the potion that you have heard of. I researched it many years ago, I brewed every variant I could think of, to no avail. Some things simply are as they are and must be accepted for it. There are ways to live with your condition without killing or maiming; I can teach you."

"I don't understand," he nodded, feeling her new fangs scraping at his collar, and pulled her gently away.

"I daresay you cannot understand much at all right now, but you will feel better soon," he sighed, and taking a small knife from his worktable he nicked the inside of his wrist, allowing the blood to well. He raised it to her lips and she shuddered, her eyes falling shut, an agonized sob catching in her throat.

"It's all right, little one, go ahead, drink and I will explain it all later." She pounded a fist against his chest in rage as her fangs sank deep into his wrist. He shuddered and caught a breath in his throat, but made no other sound. When he felt the room begin to spin he pulled her easily away from him, and sealed the wound with a silent spell. She looked tousled and sated, and he laid her on a couch, spreading a blanket over her so she could sleep off her gorging.

She awoke feeling more alive than she had ever felt in her life. Every smell, sound and texture seemed to be intensified exponentially. She could feel every strand of hair on her head, and every fiber of the soft blanket over her. She moaned in pleasure at the contact, and heard a soft chuckle.

"It's rather amazing at first, but you get used to it over time." That voice, always so silky and drawing, now sounded like absolute sin. She swung her legs over the side of the sofa, questing with her ears for him, eyes still closed.

"You knew it would be like this."

"Indeed. It would have been a true waste to allow you to kill yourself when you realized there was no cure. Tempting you to feed was remarkably easy, and the best way to get around that damned misguided Gryffindor nobility. Especially when there is so much you do not know. Particularly how things do not have to change all that much."

"You, but how? You walk in the light, I've seen you eat real food…" He chuckled.

"The blessings of being mudblooded. Oh yes, I am a halfblood, Hermoine, as you are Muggleborn. Pureblood wizard to pure vampire, mudblood wizard to daywalker." He watched as her eyes widened in comprehension. There was precious little taught at school about daywalking vampires, they were portrayed nearly identically to the muggle media, mostly because they were incredibly private and solitary. Most people knew at least one daywalker, but not one in a thousand knew who it was. He looked at her, the brightest witch of her generation, and now possibly of hundreds of generations, ageless, beautiful, brilliant.

"Open your eyes." She did so, and he smiled at the new golden color. "It suits you. You look as alive as your mind has always been now." She smiled back.

"I don't think I've ever seen you smile, Severus. You should do it more often. You would have all the female students, and half the males in the school at your feet."

"What an appalling and utterly inaccurate thought," he chuckled. "I know what I am, and am not, make no mistake." She laughed aloud and he remembered abruptly why he had referred to her as an insufferable know it all for many years.

"You have no idea, Severus, do you? How sweet. I believe I'll let you delusions continue, they suit me, for now."

"You are becoming arrogant. Normally that takes a few decades. I should have known you would be precocious. You can stay here, if you would like. I will show you what you need to know to function in the outside world. We will have to concoct a decent explanation for your absence."

"It doesn't have to be much, no one really cares."

"Potter, Weasley?" She snorted.

"Not for a long time, no. Ron is off playing Quidditch with the Harriers, and Harry, well, no one really knows, other than it's Auror business. Everyone else was killed in the war. I found the company of most people to be," she paused, and grimaced.

"Substandard. Dull. Boring. Beneath you." She glared.

"Bastard." He laughed.

"Doubtless, but you know it's true. No one could interest you, you were so much more intelligent than they, but you didn't want to admit it because it sounded so damned arrogant. So you simply became solitary."

"I, yes. That's why you are the way you are, isn't it? No one ever measured up."

"I think someone could." She looked at him, and he saw the recognition in her gaze.

"I'm not looking for a companion, Severus. Conversation is all well and good, but I will be young forever and I want more than intellectual stimulation by the fire at night. If you offer, then offer me everything." If he was surprised by her demand he didn't show it.

"You will regret that request. I will not take such requests lightly. Be very sure what you want."

"I will be very sure once you kiss me." Several breathless, delicious minutes later she laid her head on his shoulder. "I knew I would be certain. Forever is a very long time, after all."

"You plan in the long term, I see. We will have to leave this place in a few more decades. Glamours will only allow us to age for so long."

"The place doesn't matter, Severus, only the adventure."


End file.
